Organized Labour To State Governors: Resign If You Can’t Pay Minimum Wage

The organized Labour on Saturday asked state governors who cannot pay the proposed new minimum wage to resign from their positions.

Recall that the governors under the umbrella of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum in a statement issued on Friday by the organization’s Director of Media and Public Affairs , Halimah Ahmed had rejected the proposed N60,000 minimum wage for the Nigerian workers.

They had argued that it is too high and not sustainable adding that it may require many states allocating their entire Federal Account Allocation Committee funds to salaries, and leaving no resources for development projects.

Deputy National President , Trade Union Congress, (TUC) Tommy Etim, submitted on Saturday that every part of the new minimum wage agreement should be implemented and any of the state governors who cannot pay it should resign from his position.

‘There is no minimum wage. Every segment of it should be implemented. For the governors, we have said it very clearly. If you cannot pay minimum wage, please resign because you were voted for governance not for only infrastructure.
If you build the entire infrastructure and the people are not living to use it, who will use it? When they were campaigning did they tell us that? They didn’t tell us that. They make use of the poor to get to the top and when they get there, they start thinking outside the box. All the money they spent during electioneering campaigns, if they applied that to build infrastructure, to develop the revenue generation that would have solved some socio-economic challenges in their domain’ Etim said.

‘In this same country, the governors said that N30,000 was too much for governors to pay but it is in the same country that a governor emerged with over N80bn. What an irony! We cannot jump processes. We will also look at it together. Labour will be meeting. We are giving Mr President the benefit of the doubt to work the talk. The end will justify the means’ he added.

Team@orientactualmags.com learned that the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) in a statement issued by its Head of Public Affairs, Benson Upah, also condemned the line of argument canvassed by the governors.

‘We do believe the governors have acted in bad faith. It is unheard of for such a statement to be issued to the world in the middle of an on-going negotiation. It was certainly in bad taste.
As for the veracity of their claim, nothing can be further from the truth as FAAC allocations have since moved from N700bn to N1.2tn, making the governments extremely rich at the expense of the people.
All that the governors need to do to be able to pay a reasonable national minimum wage (not even the N60,000) is cut on the high cost of governance, minimize corruption as well as prioritize the welfare of workers’ the statement said-Team@orientactualmags.com  Do you have any information you wish to share with us? Do you want us to cover your event or programme? Kindly send SMS to 08059100286, 09094171980 or get in touch via orientactualmag@gmail.com.  Thank you